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HOW TO USE THIS TABLE

The table below allows you to plan a day’s worth of activities in any area of the city. Simply select which area you wish to explore, and then mix and match from the corresponding listings to build your day. The first item in each cell represents a well-known highlight of the area, while the other items are more off-the-beaten-track gems.

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LOUVRE & LES HALLES

Drinking; Eating; Shopping; Sleeping

The 1er arrondissement contains some of the most important sights for visitors to Paris. Though it can boast a wild and exciting side, it remains essentially a place where history and culture meet on the banks of the Seine.

Sculptures merge with lawns, pools and fountains, while casual strollers lose themselves in the lovely promenade stretching from the gardens of the Tuileries to the square courtyard of the Louvre. A few metres away, under the arcades of the rue de Rivoli, the pace quickens with bustling shops and chaotic traffic. Parallel to rue de Rivoli, rue St-Honoré runs from place Vendôme to Les Halles, leaving in its wake the Comédie Française and the manicured gardens of the Palais Royal.

The Forum des Halles and rue St-Denis seem kilometres away but are already visible, soliciting unwary passers-by with bright lights, jostling crowds and painted ladies. The mostly pedestrian zone between the Centre Pompidou and the Forum des Halles (with rue Étienne Marcel to the north and rue de Rivoli to the south) is filled with people day and night, just as it was for the 850-odd years when part of it served as Paris’ main halles (marketplace).

The Bourse (Stock Exchange) is the financial heart of the 2e arrondissement to the north, the Sentier district (around the Sentier metro and rue d’Aboukir and rue de Cléry), the centre of the city’s garment trade and the Opéra, its ode to music and dance. From rue de la Paix, where glittering jewellery shops display their wares, to blvd Poissonnière and blvd de Bonne Nouvelle, where stalls and fast-food outlets advertise with garish neon signs, this arrondissement is a real hotchpotch.

MUSÉE DU LOUVRE Map

01 40 20 53 17; www.louvre.fr; permanent collections/permanent collections & temporary exhibits €9/13, after 6pm Wed & Fri €6/11, permanent collections free for under 18yr & after 6pm Fri for 18-25yr, 1st Sun of the month free; 9am-6pm Mon, Thu, Sat & Sun, to 10pm Wed & Fri; Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre

The vast Palais du Louvre was constructed as a fortress by Philippe-Auguste in the early 13th century and rebuilt in the mid-16th century for use as a royal residence. The Revolutionary Convention turned it into a national museum in 1793.

The paintings, sculptures and artefacts on display in the Louvre Museum have been assembled by French governments over the past five centuries. Among them are works of art and artisanship from all over Europe and collections of Assyrian, Etruscan, Greek, Coptic and Islamic art and antiquities. The Louvre’s raison d’être is essentially to present Western art from the Middle Ages to about 1848 (at which point the Musée d’Orsay across the river takes over), as well as the works of ancient civilisations that formed the starting point for Western art.

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top picks

LOUVRE & LES HALLES

Musée du Louvre (above)

Musée de l’Orangerie

Centre Pompidou

Jardin des Tuileries

Église St-Eustache

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When the museum opened in the late 18th century it contained 2500 paintings and objets d’art; today some 35,000 are on display. The ‘Grand Louvre’ project inaugurated by the late President Mitterrand in 1989 doubled the museum’s exhibition space, and new and renovated galleries have opened in recent years devoted to objets d’art such as Sèvres porcelain and the crown jewels of Louis XV (Room 66, 1st floor, Apollo Gallery, Denon Wing).

Daunted by the richness and sheer size of the place (the side facing the Seine is 700m long and it is said that it would take nine months to see every piece of art in